


Lessons

by jawsandbones



Series: Ficlits [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 23:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15784659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jawsandbones/pseuds/jawsandbones
Summary: Dorian learns that love doesn't always leave





	Lessons

He knows how to hide. To take careful steps, that cautious dance. He has learned it by stumbling, by falling.

Young, as they sit in the library side by side, and there’s a book open on his lap but he isn’t reading the words. A palm planted against marble as the other reaches over, fingertips on his cheek, turning his face towards his and pressing a kiss against his lips. Sudden hands on his chest, pushing him away, and the book tumbles. The page is lost, and so is someone he thought a friend. Someone he thought might be more. Dorian pushes himself up from the floor, picks up the book as well. He smooths out the pages and places it back on the shelf.

The other boy challenges him to a duel the next day. Is it such an injustice to be loved by another? Some despair, mingled with anger, and Dorian wins – at a cost. An expulsion, and they will not listen to his explanation. From one Circle to the next. Knuckles brush against knuckles in a hallway and for a moment there might be hope, and he dares to speak it. From one Circle to the next. Stealing into the basements together, laughing as they look at dusty relics. A lull, and Dorian surges forward. Some muffled outrage, the bruising shove. From one Circle to the next.

The hidden touch in an unused room. He tells Dorian that he loves him, but there’s wine on his tongue and it might be the alcohol talking instead. And when the door opens? Ripped away by an angry teacher, the bruise on his cheek. The love fades as the alcohol does, and Dorian finds himself shunned, ignored, alone. It makes it easy enough to disappear. Losing himself in the slums, in the dirt and the grime where he thinks he belongs, with his shame and the shamed.

He is pulled away, and surely as he is tutored in magic, he learns to hide all the unsavory things about himself. To keep it behind closed doors, to never speak a word of it. He hears what the others say. Young Pavus, come to heel. It eats at him slowly. A cage fit to burst, lungs that can’t hold anything but what he hides. It screams out of him, tears from him, and why, why, why, is he still so surprised to find himself hated? Locked in that dungeon, his family holding the key. A single scar on his back, from a blade barely pressed. An attempt at changing.

Set adrift in the Imperium, and Dorian bends because otherwise, he might break. Stepping onto the soil of Ferelden and some weight is lifted from his shoulders. There is no one here that knows him. There is no reason to hide. But a lesson taught is a lesson learned, burned into the bone, and still he cannot quite speak the words. Once, he might have always made the first move. Now, he never does.

Careful fingertips at the nape of Dorian’s neck, the soft wisps of hair that curl there. Cautious, in the way he looks at Dorian, a glance at his lips. Mahanon steps forward, the barest touch of his nose brushing against his. Closing his eyes as Dorian settles hands on his waist, softly inhaling. A kiss planted, “Dorian,” murmured as he shifts. Another, and another. “Dorian.”

He is slow to learn this lesson. One that wipes away all the others.

Dorian wakes in the morning, expecting to find himself alone. Instead, him, sleeping beside him, an arm thrown over his chest. Nights spent in each other’s arms. A hand, held in public. A kiss, where others might see. Where others can see. Brazen, bold with it, and perhaps it’s foolish, this hope. But he says, “Dorian, I love you,” and Dorian believes him. Year after year, and he knows the lines of Mahanon’s back, the freckles on his shoulder. Memorizing every twist and turn of his vallaslin, the dimples on his cheeks. Year after year, and Dorian wakes in the morning to find him sleeping beside him, an arm thrown over his chest. “Dorian, I love you,” and Dorian loves him too.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! You can always find me [@jawsandbones](http://jawsandbones.tumblr.com/)


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